There is nothing in this life more stressful than preparing for a relaxing holiday, and that experience is replicated with chilling accuracy in the agreeably hectic latest season of hit reality show Race Across the World (BBC One, 8pm). As before, contestants are tasked with crossing the globe from one random point to another – relying only on their wits, map-reading abilities and the cash that the BBC has furnished. Cue mad dashes to ferry terminals and awkward encounters with startled locals.
The additional novelty for Irish viewers this season is the presence of father-and-daughter contestants Andrew and Molly Clifford from Maghera, Co Derry. They join the British contestants at the starting line in Palermo, from where they will eventually have to make their way to Mongolia – a mere 12,000km distant. First up, they must travel from Sicily to Fiskardo in Kefalonia, an island off Greece’s Ionian coast.
The Cliffords have gone into the contest with the right spirit of derring-do and, unlike some of their rivals, aren’t all that obsessed about winning. Geography teacher Andrew is 54 and speaks of his regret about not having travelled more in his youth. He is now making up for all those lost years, as we see when he and Molly, a 23-year-old junior doctor, take time out from the competition for a spot of canoeing around Sicily. This is a race where the occasional leisurely stop-off is permitted – provided you bring a camera crew.
Otherwise, it’s full-blown chaos as the teams try to work out where Fiskardo is and how to get there. Manchester siblings Katie and Harrison opt for an expensive ferry to Naples, where they top up their cash reserves with a shift in a local cake shop. Taking the longer (but cheaper) route, Andrew and Molly cross Sicily and then hop on a boat to Greece. But first, there’s a challenge: they don’t have enough cash for the tickets and have to ask random passersby if they’ll swap sterling for euro.
Race Across the World is manic at times – will Molly and Andrew make their ferry? – but there is also lots of unhurried rambling through random beauty spots. Best of all, most of the tensions are external, and cut-throat rivalry between the competitors is largely non-existent. This free-and-easy approach marks the show out as the direct opposite of The Traitors. Nobody is in it for the back-stabbing, and the rivals are content to rub along together. That extends to Andrew and Molly splitting the cost of a minivan with Liverpool best pals Jo and Kush.
Edge-of-the-seat excitement it is not. But in tense times, geopolitically speaking, there is an undeniable pleasure in watching people set aside their differences and embrace both the stress and the excitement of travel – and that is the greatest selling point of this amiable reality series.